"The economy's continuing to recover: the housing market is rebounding, consumer lending is improving, even jobs and business investment are coming back, albeit slowly," he said.

The relative strength could even result with slightly higher interest rates – something Cramer said would be fantastic for the sector.

"Second, many of the worries that had been holding the banks back are now in the rearview mirror," he added.

That is, Europe appears to be stabilizing. Politicians stemmed the fiscal cliff. And over the course of the next nine months, the last three major parts of Dodd-Frankwill be clarified by the regulators.

"The company's been restructuring, taking out huge costs and cleaning up the balance sheet," he said. "Bank of America has been winning share away from rivals, it's starting to have loan growth again, and the company has a housing kicker," he said.

And even though Bank of America gained 108% in 2012, the stock trades at a 30% discount to its tangible book value.

"In other words, it's still cheap," said Cramer.

"Not only is Bank of America improving, but it has a lot of room for improvement, which means its stock has a lot of room to run," Cramer concluded

* It's worth noting on the TV show Cramer talked about Bank of America relative to Home Depot in a discussion of comparative stock picking. For more on this investing concept as well as Cramer's thoughts on Home Depot – another big 2012 winner, watch the video above.